BlueScreen - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn

Author: Mark Russinovich Published: November 1, 2006

Overview

BlueScreen (Bluescreen) is a screen saver that authentically mimics the Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and can simulate system startup screens for various Windows versions.
It cycles between different BSODs and simulated boots roughly every 15 seconds, extracting system-specific information (build number, processor revision, loaded drivers and addresses, disk characteristics, memory size, etc.) to produce realistic output.
Use case: novelty/prank — "amaze your friends and scare your enemies."

Download

Download BlueScreen (64 KB): https://download.sysinternals.com/files/BlueScreen.zip
Download image link (unchanged): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/media/shared/download_sm.png

Simulated behaviors by OS

NT 4.0: simulates chkdsk of disk drives with errors.
Windows 95 / 98 / 2000: presents the Windows 2000 startup splash (rotating progress band and progress updates).
Windows XP / Server 2003: presents the XP / Server 2003 startup splash with progress bar.

Installation and usage

Copy BLUESCRN.SCR to:
- %SystemRoot%\system32 on Windows NT/2000, or
- %Windows%\System on Windows 95/98.
For Windows 95/98, you must copy \winnt\system32\ntoskrnl.exe from a Windows 2000 system into your Windows directory before running Bluescreen.
Activate via Display settings → Screen Saver tab → select "Sysinternals Bluescreen" and apply.
The "Settings" dialog can enable fake disk activity for extra realism.

Compatibility

Important notes

Some virus scanners may flag the Bluescreen screen saver as a virus; if so, you may not be able to use it.
For more details about real Blue Screens and their information, see the referenced Windows IT Pro article: https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/inside-blue-screen

Additional resources

Troubleshoot Windows startup (training module): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/troubleshoot-windows-startup/?source=recommendations

Last updated: 09/15/2022

(Original download link repeated: https://download.sysinternals.com/files/BlueScreen.zip)